Business Green reports: “With the oil price nearly halvingsince June, American oil giant Chevron has ditched its plans toexplore in the Arctic – much to the relief of environmentalgroups… Chevron wrote to Canada’s National Energy Board onWednesday confirming it had walked away from plans to drill in theBeaufort Sea, citing ‘the level of economic uncertainty in theindustry’.”

Reuters reports: “Global warming could cause an 18 percentdrop in world food production by 2050, but investments inirrigation and infrastructure, and moving food output to differentregions, could reduce the loss, a study published on Thursdaysaid.” Careful adaptation will be required to limit the effects onagriculture, but it’s going to be difficult to know exactly whereto focus adaptation efforts, the study authors say.

Reuters reports: “Brent crude held below $60 a barrel, near a5-1/2-year low, on Friday as a global oversupply of oil showedlittle sign of receding, even as companies cut upstream investmentsnext year. Oil prices were on track for a fourth straight week ofdeclines after OPEC members last month decided against cuttingproduction in response to a drop of nearly 50 percent in pricessince late June.”

Energy consumers look set to pay at least £750m a year extraafter a government-run auction finished with some power companieswinning subsidies of between £15 and £20 per kilowatt of generatingplant. This was significantly lower than the £75-per-kW price levelthat opened the bidding sessions on Tuesday but could still leaveministers being asked to justify why such “capacity payments” arebeing made at all, says The Guardian. While The Telegraphreports that at leasteight big new gas plant projects have missed out on theretainer-style subsidy contracts in favour of existing old plantsthat are cheaper to keep running. TerryMacalister, The Guardian

The launch of a ‘New Ecology’ movement by France’s NationalFront this week has been condemned by environmentalists asopportunistic and inconsistent, reports The Guardian. The far righteco-nationalist grouping was launched by Marine Le Pen, with a’patriotic’ platform of opposition to international climate talksand support for France’s nuclear industry.

US scientists have published an annual “Arctic Report Card”,tracking the progress of climate change in the region. The Arcticis warming twice as fast as some regions in lower latitudes, itfinds, and other indications of a changing climate are obvious inthe area, including changes in snow cover, the Greenland ice sheetand vegetation, the report’s authors say. Responding to ClimateChange also has the story.

It appears to be basically impossible to predict what thefuture price of oil will be with any confidence, argues BenCasselman of FiveThirtyEight. “Conventional wisdom” in this area”is nearly always wrong”, he says. The complex economics ofdrilling for oil are to blame, he says, alongside the intangiblesof global politics.

David Cameron offered a “cogent defence” of his government’sgreen record to a committee of MPs last week, citing the ClimateChange Act, the government’s ability to pass carbon budgets, andgrowth in renewables. He also supported expanded use of shale gas,and said he was ambivalent about more onshore wind – but this is areasonable case to make, the Telegraph’s Geoffrey Lean suggests.

Climate change will require major transformations inagricultural systems, including increased irrigation and movingproduction from one region to another, according to a study of 18crops and 4 crop management systems under nine different climatescenarios. Cropland could be as much as 18 per cent less productiveby 2050 because of climate change, the study finds, and withoutcareful planning for uncertain climate impacts, the chances ofgetting adaptation wrong are high.

By 2050, a majority of US coastal areas are likely to bethreatened by 30 or more days of flooding each year due todramatically accelerating impacts from sea level rise, according toa new study. Scientists studied the likelihood of ‘nuisanceflooding’ where sea levels are between one to two feet above localhigh tide. Tide gauges show the annual rate of daily floodsreaching these levels are now five to ten times more likely todaythan they were 50 years ago.